Another successful day of filming and flying with great people at a great place. It’s been a dream of ours here at Prairie Aerial to get up close and personal with those modern marvels of clean energy—wind turbines that stand over 300 feet tall! To get the beauty of those structures, however, a good wind needs to be blowing. That spells awesome motion for the wind turbines but difficult flying for the drone pilot! Blessedly, everything worked out just fine, and the result is more beautiful than we ever imagined.

We went down to Falls Park for the rare occasion of hot-air balloons taking off over the picturesque park. It was an awesome opportunity to get some beautiful footage featuring the crown jewel of our town and some majestic flying machines (besides our own!). Watch the amazing video below (fullscreen and HD!):

We visited the mayor of Garretson, SD to view the damage done to his town by the wild weather of the prairie. 100+ mph straight-line winds are said to be responsible for the destruction in town, which even included homes with roofs blown right off the walls! All the footage has been donated to the town’s historical society through the mayor’s office.

From time to time Trail King Industries in Mitchell, SD produces a trailer so enormous that the only way to really comprehend it is to view it from the air. So, naturally, they called the aerial videography experts to come in and do their work justice. And the results are tremendous.

We spent the lunch hour(s) eating delicious food and flying a drone. What more could you ask for from a Friday afternoon? Food Truck Friday happens every month at The Bakery in downtown Sioux Falls, SD. Check them out!

Today we were out at the beautiful campus of the University of Sioux Falls. The campus’ beauty comes in large part from the abundance of huge trees. They’re beautiful to look at, that is, but they’re very tricky to fly through. Nonetheless, the day was perfect and flying great—the perfect combination for great-looking footage!

We participated in a clean up effort in the tornado-ravaged town of Delmont, SD. Only a few days previous on Mother’s Day, a category EF2 tornado completely destroyed half of the already tiny town. In the way only a tornado can do, the havoc was complete. One of the only salvageable items we saw was a photo album cast in the mud. Photographs—they’re the only things that remain to remind us of what once was. It strikes us as a miracle that no one was killed, because, from the looks of it, everyone in the path of this twister should not have survived due to the sheer scale of the destruction wrought there. We will donate all our footage to the town for their historical society.

We had a grand time filming at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Seeing the beautiful animal sanctuary from above was a real treat. The animals thought it was neat too! Among the more curious animals were the snow monkeys and the bear. In fact, the bear got almost too close for comfort! Let’s just say that we have a skilled pilot who can add flying away from a bear’s claw to his résumé!

If you live in Canada—or have an internet connection anywhere in the world—you may have watched a recent episode of Discovery Channel’s Canadian news show, Daily Planet, and recognized a certain, unique camera perspective. On May 5th, a 5 minute segment aired called, “Tower Climber,” all about our climber friend, Kevin Schmidt (as seen on our viral YouTube video “1500′ TV Tower”), and made visually awesome by yours truly (and Doug Lee at Doug Lee Pictures). Watch by clicking play on the video player (or click the link below it to view it at the Discovery website):

Had a very windy day of shooting in East-central South Dakota. Despite the wind, the drone flew like a champ. The heavy farm equipment looked fantastic from the air. We’re looking forward to serving this industry more in the future.